Poor Peter. General counsel across the land have repented that they promoted a solid practicing lawyer to become an ill-suited manager. Or the capable manager of a practice area, they promoted to a direct-report position with more scope – and too many opportunities to stumble. The Peter Principle, a cynical…
A small announcement in Legal Week, July 27, 2006 at 6, harbors a hat trick of interesting promotions. The new general counsel, Carl Krasik, will also have responsibility for government affairs (See my post of Aug. 8, 2006 on this trend in Europe.). As for the second point, the former…
Amidst all the publicity about diversity (See my posts of Sept. 4, 2005 about definitions; and Dec. 4, 2005 on minorities.), why don’t law departments take the following powerful position regarding diversity among the lawyers its outside counsel assign to its matters? “Your law firm must use on our matters…
Previous posts have considered distinctions between titles: Assistant and Associate General Counsel (Nov. 8, 2005; March 23, 2006 for below those levels; June 16, 2006 #1 for a contrary view; and June 15, 2006 for international titles), secretary and administrative assistant (May 17, 2006), officer designations (Feb. 28, 2006), and…
In 2003, two women professors analyzed 45 studies of gender differences in leadership styles. According to the NYTimes, June 25, 2006 at WK3, “women managers tended to be — on average — more collaborative than men, more encouraging to subordinates, more likely to include them in decisions. Men were more…
Scores of search firms (aka headhunters) serve law departments. Despite my teasing post of Oct. 26, 2005 on sources of law department lawyers and a more recent factoid on June 27, 2006 about 5 percent of hires coming through recruiters, I suspect that at the high end of law department…
“Probably less than 5% of all in-house positions are filled through recruiters.” This quote came from a search firm’s website. At the general counsel level, or that of the direct reports to the general counsel, that percentage certainly climbs much higher. The Infirmation site goes on to observe that in…
Position descriptions can make structure rigid. They can slide into obsolescence and suck up time in unproductive tracking and fine-tuning. They might make it harder to fill positions or create new ones. More positively, position descriptions help to clarify decision-making levels and employees’ roles. They pitch in during evaluations, promotions…
In a study, subjects spotted angry expressions more quickly than any of the other five basic expressions, and especially male anger. Even more, men picked out the angry expressions faster than women did, according to the summary in the Economist, June 10, 2006 at 82. It may be that alpha…
A belief often expressed in U.S. law departments holds that lawyers oversees must have higher-ranking titles because when they deal with foreign business executives, the title makes the man, so to speak. Perhaps the diminished actual power of in-house counsel in foreign countries is counterbalanced by more magnificent titles (See…